You really believe I post that assertion without having checked to see if it's true? Leadership or the absence of it matters. Trump didn't show it. And we're seeing his residual influence, his junk science mentality, driving the COVID surge most heavily among his anti-mask, anti-vax supporters
https://www.businessinsider.com/analysis-trum...ble-2021-2
Damning analysis of Trump's pandemic response suggested 40% of US COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided
John Haltiwanger and Aylin Woodward
Donald Trump removes his mask after returning to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 5. Win McNamee/Getty Images
A report on the Trump administration's policies suggested 40% of US COVID-19 deaths were avoidable.
Compared with six similarly wealthy countries, the US failed to protect citizens' health in the pandemic.
Trump publicly downplayed COVID-19 and often undermined health guidelines.
About 40% of US COVID-19 deaths "could have been averted," a new analysis of President Donald Trump's public-health policies found.
The report, published by the Lancet Commission, excoriated Trump's handling of the pandemic and general approach to public health. "He expedited the spread of COVID-19 in the US," the authors wrote.
"Many of the cases and deaths were avoidable," they said, adding that "instead of galvanizing the US populace to fight the pandemic, President Trump publicly dismissed its threat (despite privately acknowledging it), discouraged action as infection spread, and eschewed international cooperation."
The US has recorded about 27 million COVID-19 cases and at least 471,000 deaths, though public-health experts have said those official tallies are likely undercounted.
The Lancet report did not place all the blame on Trump's policies, however; it also pointed to four decades of "long-standing flaws in US economic, health, and social policy" that compounded inefficiencies in the country's public-health systems before the pandemic.
More than 400,000 Americans died of COVID-19 under Trump's watch
A woman holds a dead patient's hands in a COVID-19 intensive-care unit in Houston, Texas, on December 6. Go Nakamura/Getty Images
By the time Trump left office in January, there were more than 400,000 reported COVID-19 deaths in the US. That's more Americans than the number of US troops killed during World War II.
The US leads the world in total coronavirus deaths, though it does not have the most COVID-19 deaths per capita.
For their new analysis, the Lancet authors compared the US's COVID-19 death rate with the average death rate of six other economically advanced nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK. They weighted those death rates by each country's population, since their sizes vary widely.
They concluded that 40% of the US's roughly 450,000 coronavirus deaths as of February 4 could have been avoided if the country had handled the pandemic similarly to its wealthy peers. That's 180,000 lives.
The report added that other countries outperformed the US in other areas of public health. The average life expectancy in the US was 3.4 years lower than in the six countries in 2018. That year, the US had 461,000 excess deaths — more deaths than expected based on historical data. That figure has been rising since 1980.
Trump 'repudiated science'
Trump publicly downplayed the threat of COVID-19 and habitually dismissed policy recommendations from top experts, including some from his White House coronavirus task force. In June, his campaign hosted a rally inside an arena in Oklahoma that could seat 19,000 people.
He "repudiated science, leaving the US unprepared and exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic," the Lancet authors wrote.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN last month that a lack of clear messaging from the federal government "likely did" cost lives last year.
"People were not trusting what health officials were saying," Fauci added.
In February 2020, Nancy Messonnier, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that the virus was circulating in American communities and that people should prepare for "severe" disruptions in daily life.
But around the same time, Trump said the number of COVID-19 cases would be "close to zero" within a couple of days.
Later, Trump privately told the journalist Bob Woodward that he had deliberately downplayed the threat of COVID-19 because he didn't want to cause a panic.
'It's hard to imagine how they could've done it worse'
Two of the Lancet report's authors published a similar analysis of Trump's health policies in 2018. That report said that Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy, challenges to the Affordable Care Act, and refusal to give adequate aid to Puerto Ricans following Hurricane Maria showed that the administration "favors industry and the wealthy and serves to endanger population and planetary health."
In October, the Lancet also published a commentary describing the administration's handling of the pandemic as "disastrous," urging Americans "to embrace change for the better" in the 2020 election.
Other public-health experts have highlighted the ways Trump's approach to the pandemic set a poor example for Americans and contributed to the US's huge case total.
"It's hard to imagine how they could've done it worse," Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, previously told Insider.
A mostly maskless crowd waiting to get into the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a Trump rally on June 20. Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images
Fauci criticized Trump's frequent refusal to wear a mask — in a recent interview with The Atlantic, he attributed that to Trump's "macho" attitude.
"To him, a mask was a sign of weakness," Fauci told The Atlantic, adding that "the unfortunate aspect of this is that a lot of people in the country took that on as a mantra."
The Lancet report's authors said Trump's refusal to develop a consistent national pandemic strategy "worsened shortages of personal protective equipment and diagnostic tests."
Once vaccines were authorized, each state was made responsible for its own distribution. The issue boiled down to the philosophy of Trump's White House and Department of Health and Human Services staff, Jha told Insider.
"They believe deeply that it's not the role of the federal government to help states in a health crisis, that it's the job of states to figure this all out on their own," he said.
https://www.businessinsider.com/analysis-trum...ble-2021-2
Quote:it is a virus it would not have made a difference of who was in charge trump , biden or anybody else the out come would have been the same.
Damning analysis of Trump's pandemic response suggested 40% of US COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided
John Haltiwanger and Aylin Woodward
Donald Trump removes his mask after returning to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 5. Win McNamee/Getty Images
A report on the Trump administration's policies suggested 40% of US COVID-19 deaths were avoidable.
Compared with six similarly wealthy countries, the US failed to protect citizens' health in the pandemic.
Trump publicly downplayed COVID-19 and often undermined health guidelines.
About 40% of US COVID-19 deaths "could have been averted," a new analysis of President Donald Trump's public-health policies found.
The report, published by the Lancet Commission, excoriated Trump's handling of the pandemic and general approach to public health. "He expedited the spread of COVID-19 in the US," the authors wrote.
"Many of the cases and deaths were avoidable," they said, adding that "instead of galvanizing the US populace to fight the pandemic, President Trump publicly dismissed its threat (despite privately acknowledging it), discouraged action as infection spread, and eschewed international cooperation."
The US has recorded about 27 million COVID-19 cases and at least 471,000 deaths, though public-health experts have said those official tallies are likely undercounted.
The Lancet report did not place all the blame on Trump's policies, however; it also pointed to four decades of "long-standing flaws in US economic, health, and social policy" that compounded inefficiencies in the country's public-health systems before the pandemic.
More than 400,000 Americans died of COVID-19 under Trump's watch
A woman holds a dead patient's hands in a COVID-19 intensive-care unit in Houston, Texas, on December 6. Go Nakamura/Getty Images
By the time Trump left office in January, there were more than 400,000 reported COVID-19 deaths in the US. That's more Americans than the number of US troops killed during World War II.
The US leads the world in total coronavirus deaths, though it does not have the most COVID-19 deaths per capita.
For their new analysis, the Lancet authors compared the US's COVID-19 death rate with the average death rate of six other economically advanced nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK. They weighted those death rates by each country's population, since their sizes vary widely.
They concluded that 40% of the US's roughly 450,000 coronavirus deaths as of February 4 could have been avoided if the country had handled the pandemic similarly to its wealthy peers. That's 180,000 lives.
The report added that other countries outperformed the US in other areas of public health. The average life expectancy in the US was 3.4 years lower than in the six countries in 2018. That year, the US had 461,000 excess deaths — more deaths than expected based on historical data. That figure has been rising since 1980.
Trump 'repudiated science'
Trump publicly downplayed the threat of COVID-19 and habitually dismissed policy recommendations from top experts, including some from his White House coronavirus task force. In June, his campaign hosted a rally inside an arena in Oklahoma that could seat 19,000 people.
He "repudiated science, leaving the US unprepared and exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic," the Lancet authors wrote.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN last month that a lack of clear messaging from the federal government "likely did" cost lives last year.
"People were not trusting what health officials were saying," Fauci added.
In February 2020, Nancy Messonnier, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that the virus was circulating in American communities and that people should prepare for "severe" disruptions in daily life.
But around the same time, Trump said the number of COVID-19 cases would be "close to zero" within a couple of days.
Later, Trump privately told the journalist Bob Woodward that he had deliberately downplayed the threat of COVID-19 because he didn't want to cause a panic.
'It's hard to imagine how they could've done it worse'
Two of the Lancet report's authors published a similar analysis of Trump's health policies in 2018. That report said that Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy, challenges to the Affordable Care Act, and refusal to give adequate aid to Puerto Ricans following Hurricane Maria showed that the administration "favors industry and the wealthy and serves to endanger population and planetary health."
In October, the Lancet also published a commentary describing the administration's handling of the pandemic as "disastrous," urging Americans "to embrace change for the better" in the 2020 election.
Other public-health experts have highlighted the ways Trump's approach to the pandemic set a poor example for Americans and contributed to the US's huge case total.
"It's hard to imagine how they could've done it worse," Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, previously told Insider.
A mostly maskless crowd waiting to get into the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a Trump rally on June 20. Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images
Fauci criticized Trump's frequent refusal to wear a mask — in a recent interview with The Atlantic, he attributed that to Trump's "macho" attitude.
"To him, a mask was a sign of weakness," Fauci told The Atlantic, adding that "the unfortunate aspect of this is that a lot of people in the country took that on as a mantra."
The Lancet report's authors said Trump's refusal to develop a consistent national pandemic strategy "worsened shortages of personal protective equipment and diagnostic tests."
Once vaccines were authorized, each state was made responsible for its own distribution. The issue boiled down to the philosophy of Trump's White House and Department of Health and Human Services staff, Jha told Insider.
"They believe deeply that it's not the role of the federal government to help states in a health crisis, that it's the job of states to figure this all out on their own," he said.
1
